Catalogue to accompany an exhibition to be held at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 27 October 1994-22 January 1995 and afterwards in New York

This is where painting meets collage! You can create beautiful art with amazing depth and texture, using easy collage techniques and paper you paint yourself. Popular workshop instructor Elizabeth St. Hilaire makes it fun and simple no matter what your skill level! Start with materials you probably already have--fluid acrylics, stencils, a few household items and paper--and hand-paint your personalized paper palette using basic techniques anyone can do. Then move through each step of composing your own work of art. You'll find beautiful, meaningful examples of the how and why on every page. You'll learn how to: develop your composition, how to work with simple shapes, important lessons on value and much more. • More than 30 techniques for painting your own decorative papers • Step-by-step instructions for creating your own painted paper collage–from underpainting and directional ripping and tearing to auditioning your papers and combining collage with mixed media • A spectacular gallery of paper paintings to inspire and dazzle--still lifes, figures, animals and landscapes

"Hand-painted illumination enlivened the burgeoning culture of the book in the Italian Renaissance, spanning the momentous shift from manuscript production to print. J. J. G. Alexander describes key illuminated manuscripts and printed books from the period and explores the social and material worlds in which they were produced. Renaissance humanism encouraged wealthy members of the laity to join the clergy as readers and book collectors. Illuminators responded to patrons' developing interest in classical motifs, and celebrated artists such as Mantegna and Perugino occasionally worked as illuminators. Italian illuminated books found patronage across Europe, their dispersion hastened by the French invasion of Italy at the end of the 15th century.--

Take a mixed-media journey to the very heart of your creativity! The Painted Art Journal opens doors to your most personal and authentic art yet. Tell your story as only you can, through a series of guided projects that culminate in a beautiful, autobiographical art journal worthy of passing along to future generations. Along the way, you will hone your own unique style of artful storytelling, filled with the images, colors and symbols that resonate most powerfully with you. Twenty-four inventive, step-by-step prompts help you to: • Set the scene for making art--from establishing rituals that unlock creativity to curating a personal storyboard. • Draw inspiration from photos, typography, sketches, childhood memories, quotes and more. • Shape your story with timelines, gathered-word poetry and simple approaches to portraits. • Express yourself through an exciting range of mixed-media techniques, using everything from pen and ink, markers and watercolor to image transfers, printmaking with linocuts, acrylic and collage. A book unlike any other, The Painted Art Journal is all about digging deeper, honoring your life, and coming away with a truer understanding of yourself and your art. "Each of our stories is so different, lovely and broken in its own way." --Jeanne Oliver

A heartrending, gripping novel about two sisters in Belle Époque Paris and the young woman forever immortalized as muse for Edgar Degas’ Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. 1878 Paris. Following their father’s sudden death, the van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without his wages, and with the small amount their laundress mother earns disappearing into the absinthe bottle, eviction from their lodgings seems imminent. With few options for work, Marie is dispatched to the Paris Opéra, where for a scant seventeen francs a week, she will be trained to enter the famous ballet. Her older sister, Antoinette, finds work as an extra in a stage adaptation of Émile Zola’s naturalist masterpiece L’Assommoir. Marie throws herself into dance and is soon modeling in the studio of Edgar Degas, where her image will forever be immortalized as Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. There she meets a wealthy male patron of the ballet, but might the assistance he offers come with strings attached? Meanwhile Antoinette, derailed by her love for the dangerous Émile Abadie, must choose between honest labor and the more profitable avenues open to a young woman of the Parisian demimonde. Set at a moment of profound artistic, cultural, and societal change, The Painted Girls is a tale of two remarkable sisters rendered uniquely vulnerable to the darker impulses of “civilized society.” In the end, each will come to realize that her salvation, if not survival, lies with the other.

Create decorated paper as beautiful as any found in an art store and with more distinctive and personal patterns, too. Alisa Golden's methods of applying inks and paints to paper can dramatically alter the appearance of finished works. From artist books and journals to greeting cards, collages and more, these techniques work on any paper surface and give numerous new skills to the crafter. Create dramatic effects using gesso, acrylic inks, watercolour paints, stamps, stencils and more. From basic patterning to paste paper frottage, plus a selection of nine projects, this book is a treasury of ideas.

Can you give the gorilla a jungle to hide in? Can you create some honeycomb for the bees? And can you mix up some delicious flavors of ice cream? Create paint masterpieces with nothing more than your poster paints and Anna Rumsby's entertaining activity pages. A great big book of painting fun! Also contains an introduction to mixing colors and simple, easy-to-copy painting techniques.